Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said his government was willing to sign a treaty making the entire Middle East a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, an Australian broadcaster reported on Wednesday.

In an interview with the Australian government-owned Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), Shara also vigorously denied U.S. allegations that Syria had chemical weapons or had allowed Iraq to hide banned weapons on its soil during the Iraq war.

"The Syrian government is ready to sign a treaty under U.N. supervision to make the whole Middle East a zone free from all mass destruction weapons, nuclear, chemical and biological," he told SBS in an interview in Damascus.

"It is better for the Americans, for the Israelis, for every citizen on earth, especially in the Middle East, and it is good for the American forces in Iraq, to see that the whole Middle East is a zone free from all mass destruction weapons," Shara said.

"Also it is very useful to see this taking place because in this case no terrorist, as the Americans say and some Europeans say, no terrorists can have these mass destruction weapons with them." (Albawaba.com)